


Yuuki's Guide to Teaching Mahjong, and Kyou's Guide to Playing It

by reminiscence



Category: Saki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Ficlet, Ficlet Collection, Gen, ffn challenge: diversity writing challenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-11 15:06:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 7,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10467822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reminiscence/pseuds/reminiscence
Summary: Kyoutarou wants to learn how to play mahjong. And the president has prescribed the role to Yuuki and so she'll either chase him away or teach him... And how did romance and tacos and a pair of demon sisters come into the equation? ...well, Saki always had been part of the equation.





	1. The Basics

**Author's Note:**

> After watching Saki, I tried to learn mahjong. I've been only partially successful at the moment (still have no idea how to calculate scores and my main winning hand is seven pairs for some reason...), but it's a lot of fun. And Kyou is the perfect player to learn along the way. And enjoy plot and funsies and games rolled into one.
> 
> Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, k1 - ficlet collection

The president was being lazy. Or evil. Yuuki really wasn't sure which. And Mako and Nodoka wouldn't help. Not when the president had handed the task to her. They'd just sit in their seats and be the players in a four-player game but all the teaching, all the _explaining_ , was on her.

She sighed.

'Do you know _anything_ about mah-jong?' she tried hopefully.

'Not a thing,' the newcomer, Suga Kyoutarou replied cheerfully.

'Then why in the world you want to join the mah-jong club?' she asked, exasperated.

The boy shrugged. 'I was tired of doing sports and stuff. And I want to figure out… something.'

Mako laughed at that. So she wasn't going to hide behind the figurative screen after all. 'This isn't necessarily the place you'll find an epiphany, you know.'

'I know, but I think I will find this one. It's a mah-jong related something.' He didn't elaborate any further than that.

But at least it was at least a better reason than "tired of sports". There was a checkers club, after all.

'It's a shame,' Mako continued, looking over the boy. Yuki didn't think there was that much to see… But maybe that was because she was surrounded by girls like Nodoka. 'If you'd been a girl instead, we could've gone to the Nationals.'

'Hmm…' Yuuki grinned slowly as the boy took a step back. 'Relax, you'd make a horrible boy.'

'Sure. Whatever.' He shook his head. 'It wouldn't be bad, you know. The cafeteria would give me the ladies lunch, at least, and I wouldn't have to keep asking Saki – hey!'

Mako and Yuuki burst out laughing at that one. And Yuki thought he could get along with the guy after all, especially since he joined in on the laughing.

Only Nodoka stared at them, impatient to play.

'Okay.' Mako sat down. Yuuki remained standing. 'First order of business. Reading the tiles. We've got three suits: circle, bamboo and character, and they each run from one to nine. Then we've got the honour tiles and there's two types of those: the wind tiles and the dragon tiles, and they're four each.'

'So a total of thirty-five unique tiles,' Kyoutarou said, after counting them in silence.

'Right,' Yuuki replied, though she'd never bothered counting them herself. Mako or Nodoka would correct her if she got it wrong, anyway. 'You get thirteen tiles, and each turn you draw one and discard one, so your hand effectively consists of fourteen. To win, you need to make a yaku. Aside from a few special cases, yaku consist of four sets and a pair. Sets can be three or four of a kind, or three in sequence. Honour tiles can't do sequences. We'll leave out the exceptions until you can win with the basics. Cool?'

'Sounds like a plan,' said Kyoutarou, relieved he didn't need to know exceptions right then. 'So one pair, and the rest have to be three in sequence or of a kind, or four of a kind. And each turn I draw one tile and discard one. Aim for sets and discard anything that doesn't fit.'

'Exactly that.' Maybe this teaching stuff wouldn't be too bad after all. 'Now let's see you put that to use. We'll each start with 25,000 points. If you win, you take points from the other players and add them to your total. If someone else wins before you, you pay them points instead. We each play two rounds in each position, meaning eight rounds total. The person with the highest score at the end wins, naturally.'

She paused and hummed to herself. What else needed to be explained. Riichi, definitely. She wouldn't rack up as many points in the East round without it. 'If you have a hand that's one tile away from complete – called a tenpai – you can declare a riichi. That means you sacrifice 1000 points – one of those blue sticks – and place your tile sideways in the discards. After that, you can't change your hand at all. You can only draw and discard the tile you draw, or declare ron on someone else's discard. If you don't get the tile you need or someone else wins, you lose the 1000 points you bet. If you win your riichi bet, you can flip more dora over.'

'Dora?' Kyoutarou repeated.

'We'll show you when we set the table.' But the marker that sits here,' She pointed near the middle, 'is called a dora indicator. The tile one up from that is your dora. If your dora indicator is a 9-pin or something, then the 1-pin becomes your dora. The more dora in your hand, the higher the value of your hand. Making sense?'

'I think my brain is going into information overload, but otherwise yes.'

'Good.' Yuuki grinned. 'Now it's time for stage two. Beat you so badly, you'll want to run away and never come back.'

'I'm not that quick a quitter,' Kyoutarou cried.

'Good.' Yuuki grinned wider. 'That's more times I get to beat you.'

'Did you forget we're playing too?' Mako asked dryly.


	2. Pon, Chi and Kan

                 ‘Pon,’’ said Nodoka, sweeping Mako’s red dragon along with two of hers to a corner of the board.

Kyoutarou stared. ‘And what in the world is a pon?’

                ‘Whoops,’ Yuuki said sheepishly, grinning first at Nodoka who’d called the pon, then at Kyoutarou. ‘You know how you can make three of a kind in your hand? If you have two of a kind in your hand and one of your opponents discards one, you can use their discard and make a three of a kind like that – that’s called a pon. Of course, the disadvantage is that you wind up revealing it – called an open hand – so less points. But it does a few things: changes the drawing order, means you don’t have to depend on drawing the correct tile… And if you draw the fourth tile later, you can turn it into a late kan.’

                ‘And a kan is…?’

                ‘That’s four of a kind. You have three and someone discards number four, or you have all four in your hand. Same thing. When you call a kan, you draw a tile from the dead wall. The exception to a hand having fourteen tiles.’               

                ‘There’s also chi,’ Mako reminded, then decided to explain that instead of waiting for Yuuki to do so. ‘A chi is a three in sequence. For example, if you have a 1-pin and 2-pin, and I discard a 3-pin, you can call chi and create a three in sequence with that. Same results as with a pon, effectively.’

                ‘And if you call any of those, the one you took from the discards is placed sideways, so we know which one it is.’

                ‘…there are suddenly a lot more rules.’ Kyoutarou squinted at the board. It didn’t affect his hand though. It was a mess because he kept on discarding things he wound up needing down the track. He’d drawn three green dragons from the pile, but each after he’d discarded the one before. He wondered if there was a trick to it. Were some tiles simply more common than others? Or was there some sort of intuitive sense he’d have to develop.

Well, if that was the case, his intuition better get ready for a workout.

And he draw the last red dragon. Well, that was no good now. Dragons didn’t have sequences… right? He discarded it and frowned at his tiles. He could have used that 8-pin he’d discarded earlier though. He’d have had a nice sequence. And the 5-wan. Could’ve had a pair. Though he had a couple of pairs already so maybe that wouldn’t have been so useful.

He stared at the others’ discard piles. No wait; it would have been useful. Mako had also discarded a 5-wan. He could’ve called a pon on that, right? He quickly counted the tiles. Yup –

                ‘Ron.’

He blinked. Yuuki snatched up Mako’s discarded tile and opened her hand. ‘Yakuhai. 4800 points.’

Kyoutarou leaned over the board to read her hand. 1-wan, 2-wan, 3-wan, three 3-pin, two 7-pin, 4-sou, 5-sou, 6-sou, and three ton.

And the following games went along the same vein. He couldn’t even get a semblance of a complete hand before Yuuki would call a tsumo or ron – or riichi, sometimes.

And then they moved on from the East round and it was mostly Mako and Nodoka.

By the time they came into the South round, the President arrived and was standing, an imposing figure, behind Kyoutarou, silently watching.

1-wan, 5-wan, 9-wan, 3-sou, 5-sou, 1-pin, 1-pin, 3-pin, 5-pin, 9-pin, chun, chun, nan, hatsu.

So he had his obligatory pair ready to go, unless he drew or someone else discarded another red dragon and he made a triplet. And if he could get a 4-sou and a 4-pin, he’d have sequences there. Or a 2-pin. And that was about it.

Of course, he didn’t get any of those. His hand, when Nodoka called an early ron off his green dragon, was 1-wan, 1-wan, 3-sou, 3-sou, 5-sou, 1-pin, 1-pin, 3-pin, 3-pin, 5-pin, 9-pin, chun, chun, nan. More pairs than were necessary and not a single set of three and no-one had even discarded a 4-sou or a 4-pin. Or a 2-pin for that matter.

All that information crammed into his head and he hadn’t had the chance to use any of it.

                ‘Be back tomorrow,’ Yuuki instructed. ‘And we’ll beat you some more.’

                ‘Sure,’ he said, unenthused. Because he wasn’t looking forward to being beaten before he could make a move – but if that was what it took to hone that instinct he lacked, then so be it.

He was going to understand this game – and then understand that thing that eluded him at the current time.


	3. The Congress President

Kyou’s first sight of the president was her arms crossed, frowning at the mahjong table. ‘Uh… hi,’ he offered. ‘Thanks for having me.’

Because their first official meeting was her under the blanket, grumbling for Yuuki to take over teaching the newbie.

                ‘Sure, welcome.’ The president waved a hand. ‘Takei Hisa. School council congress president and president of the Mahjong club.’

He blinked at that. ‘Wow, talk about heavy duties. No wonder you needed a nap.’

                ‘Ah, it’s not that.’ She stretched. ‘The bed here’s just so comfortable. And it’s so easy to make plans here.’

Then she looked back at the table and frowned. ‘You, on the other hand, have a long long way to go. You’re so far into negatives we’ll need a shovel to dig you back out.’

He drooped. Mako laughed. ‘Be kind to Suga-kun, Hisa,’ she said. ‘Yuuki and Nodoka don’t know how to take it easy.’

                ‘I suppose that’s true,’ Hisa hummed. ‘How about you let me take your seat, Suga-kun? You can learn a lot by watching someone as well.’

Kyou shot out of his seat in an instant. ‘Please!’ he exclaimed. ‘These games are making my head spin.’

                ‘Giving up?’ Yuuki teased.

                ‘No way,’ Kyou counted. ‘I am making a strategical retreat and learning by observation.’

                ‘Good answer,’ Hisa agreed, pulling up her sleeves. ‘Now let’s see here. How many rounds are left?’

                ‘Two,’ Mako grinned. ‘Sure you don’t want to reconsider?’

Hisa tied her hair into two pigtails. ‘No way,’ she grinned.

They drew their hand tiles. Hisa blinked at hers. ‘Aww, this one’s terrible,’ she groaned. She had one of each honour tile, and her other tiles weren’t near each other either.

Then she grinned. ‘Just letting you know, Suga-kun,’ she said, discarding her 8-sou. ‘Bad waits are my specialty.’

                ‘Huh?’ Kyou blinked.

Nodoka, on the other hand, frowned. ‘That is nothing but superstition,’ she said. ‘There is no logic at all for choosing a bad wait that has a far lower probability of success. If you believe it is successful more often than not for you, then it is either luck or your own illusion. Or a mix of the two.’

                ‘That’s so strict, Nodoka-chan,’ Hisa grinned. She added the 1-wan to her hand and discarded the 5-wan.

From his standpoint, Kyou couldn’t see a single sensible thing about that hand, but Hisa seemed to have some sort of plan in mind. She picked up the 9-wan and discarded the 8-wan.

Kyou blinked at that. She wasn’t going to get a sequence that way. Not that anything else in her hand made a sequence.

9-sou for 3-sou. 1-pin for 5-sou. Then a 1-sou for a spare nan – and declaring a Riichi with it?

The other three were frowning. Hisa was grinning. ‘Is that legal?’ Kyou asked aloud.

                ‘Of course it is,’ Hisa replied. ‘And since that’s probably given the game away, this is one of the two exceptions of the requiring three sets or sequences of three and a pair to have a complete hand.’

The other three stiffened at that, because they knew those hands were worth a lot of points. And all of them scanned the discards to try and work out which tile she was waiting for.

 _Well_ , Hisa supposed, _they did know my playing style well enough_. Even Nodoka who claimed not to believe it at all.

They all discarded a new tile. _Cautious… but it won’t help._

She drew the 9-pin on her next draw. ‘Riichi, ippatsu tsumo. Kokushi musou. That’s 8000/16000 points.’

                ‘Ouch,’ Mako winced. ‘That dealer penalty hurts.’ She’d been sitting East that round.

                ‘Kokushi musou?’ Kyou repeated, mystified.

                ‘Learn the rules before the exceptions,’ Hisa scolded. ‘Though I guess I didn’t set a great example there, did I?’

                ‘Well, I guess…’ Kyou counted the points in his head. _Hang on…_ ‘You won 32000 points in a single turn?!’

                ‘That I did,’ Hisa said proudly. ‘But don’t expect a repeat performance. They’re insanely rare. Even for someone like who likes playing with low odds.’

                ‘Certainly not an example to follow,’ said a waspish-looking Nodoka. ‘What’s important is the essentials.’


	4. A Week of Tsumo and Ron

Kyou stuck to the basics, as ordered. It sounded simple enough. Three sets or sequences containing three tiles each and a pair – but he couldn’t seem to get them together. Every time it looked like he would (and he’d even declared riichi a few times), someone else beat him. A few even snatched rons off his riichi discards.

And then he’d look back at the discards and realise he was either waiting for something that had already been discarded three times before that or if only he hadn’t discarded certain things earlier on… But how was he supposed to work around that? It wasn’t like he could foresee his draws!

                ‘You’re not paying attention to the discards until the game’s over,’ Nodoka said, on the fourth afternoon. ‘Seeing what the other players have discarded can help you predict what sort of hand your opponent’s building… And also what waits are good and which ones are hopeless. For example, if you have two 1-sou and another two have already been discarded, there’s no point waiting for a third 1-sou. But you just did exactly that.’

                ‘Right,’ Kyou mumbled to himself. ‘Keep an eye on the discards.’

His next few hands were complete messes.

And the next day didn’t start off much better.

Until he finally got into tenpai again. ‘Finally. Riichi!’ He threw down a riichi stick.’

                ‘Ron,’ said Nodoka, as though she’d been waiting for it.

                ‘You were way too excited,’ Yuuki commented. ‘Was that your first tenpai all day?’

                ‘Yes,’ Kyou admitted morosely. ‘Why can’t I win a hand? Are my discards that easy to read?’

                ‘Not really.’ Mako frowned. ‘Honestly, they don’t make any sense to me at all.’

But Mako had won hands off him as well.

                ‘It’s luck,’ said Yuuki brightly. ‘Even the best players win less than half the hands.’

                ‘It’s more around thirty percent,’ Nodoka corrected. ‘That’s why it’s important to be as efficient as possible.’

                ‘Well..,’ Kyou looked at his own hand. ‘It’s good to tell me that and all, but I still haven’t won a single hand.’ _This next one,_ he decided.

The next one was absolutely terrible. He’d have stood a better chance trying to pull off whatever the president had done last time. What had she called it again? Kokushi musou?

                ‘Ron,’ Yuuki declared on the 5-pin he discarded. ‘You’re way easier to read than the taichou.’ And Nodoka and Mako didn’t seem surprised either.

So they’d seen right through his attempt to replicate a kokushi musou.

                ‘I told you to stick to the basics,’ Hisa scolded.

                ‘I’m sorry,’ Kyou said to his lap. ‘My starting hand was ridiculous.’

                ‘Well, you’ve improved some to recognise that. It was pretty ridiculous at first glance. You could have tried calling, though.’

 _Calling…_ ‘Like chi and pon?’ He tried that the next game, but couldn’t get far enough before Nodoka called a tsumo.

The president slapped her forehead. ‘I didn’t mean right away. It’s not for every hand, you know.’

                ‘Maybe we should give you some homework,’ Yuuki grinned.

                ‘That’s your job,’ said the president, when Kyou groaned at the idea. ‘I did ask you to teach Suga-kun, so his failures weigh on you, you know.’

                ‘Hai, hai.’

Though the homework turned out to be far easier than winning a hand. He could write down all the possibilities with those starting hands but it would be the draws and discards that would determine whether he could make any of them a possibility.


	5. Seats and Yakuman

‘You’re hopeless,’ Hisa said, once Yuuki had skipped off after their club meeting on Saturday, and the other two followed suit at a more sedate pace. ‘Considering the amount of luck involved, you should have won _something_ by now.’

Kyou simply sighed at the tiles. ‘There’s so many rules,’ he admitted, ‘and I’m having a hard time working out what to try for until I’ve already made a mess of it. Even with the homework Yuuki gave me yesterday. There are just so many possibilities at first and how should I know what I’ll wind up drawing afterwards or what everyone else’s hands look like?’

                ‘Well.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s experience, mostly. Your beginning hand, if it’s not already in tenpai, will have many possibilities and it’s up to you to choose the one that best suits you. You won’t find that out until you start winning.’

                ‘Well…’ Kyou waved a hand to his score. ‘That could take a while.’

She laughed. ‘Mahjong is a game of luck, you know, as well as strategy. And some claim supernatural powers at work too.’

                ‘Really?’ Kyou asked sceptically. ‘I may be hopeless at this, but I’m not seeing anything supernatural.’

                ‘Like how Yuuki is so much stronger in the East hanchan than the South?’ Hisa asked, eyebrow raised. ‘Only so much can be put down to the slight difference in mechanics.’

                ‘Like what?’ Kyou asked, more curious now. He hadn’t noticed anything different about the two hanchans at all.

Hisa sighed. ‘Didn’t Yuuki explain the basics? Your typical mahjong match is made up of two hanchans, which is eight hands in total, plus any bonus hands. The first four hands are called east, and the second four are south. Yuuki being a strong player in the East hanchan means she’s strong in the first hanchan, but weaker in the second.’

                ‘Question!’ Kyou stuck a hand up. Because Hisa really did have a teacher’s voice on he couldn’t help but follow the act. ‘How does one get more points?’

Hisa took out one of each wind tile. ‘You remember flipping these, right?’ she asked. ‘There’s one for each direction, and they correspond to a seat on the table. ‘The person sitting East is the dealer. Someone in the East seat or during the east hanchan can get more points by using Ton tiles in their hand. Likewise, someone in the South seat or during the south hanchan can get more points using Nan tiles in their hand. The north and west seats have less opportunities because there are no north or west hands.’

                ‘So that’s how Yuuki was getting all those crazy powerful hands.’ Kyou hummed, considering the tiles. ‘Then why does everyone discard them so early in the hand?’

                ‘Because they can’t make sequences,’ Hisa replied, then she sighed. ‘I thought I sent Yuuki to explain all this stuff. I’m withholding her tacos from Monday.’ She cleared her throat at Kyou’s surprised look, then continued, ‘Any of the suit tiles can make pairs, triplets, quadruplets or sequences with other tiles from the same suit. Also, anything that’s not a terminal tile can have multiple ways of making sequences. In contrast, the honour tiles can’t make sequences, so your only options are pairs, triplets or quadruplets. So statistically speaking, it’s easier to make a hand without them.’ She shrugged. ‘Hands are worth more with them, though, for the most part. And sometimes you need to have a triplet of honour times to tsumo or ron.’

                ‘Huh,’ Kyou blinked. ‘You can’t always tsumo or ron if you have four triplets or sequences of three, and a pair?’

                ‘Not necessarily.’ Hisa leaned over the board and arranged some times. ‘There’s exceptions both ways. There are three types of hands that break the rule of a winning hand requiring four sets of three and a pair. The first is one or more kans. With a kan, you draw a tile from the dead all and your hand now has one extra tile in it and you’ve flipped over a new dora on the dead wall. So replace one of the triplets or sequences of three with a kan and proceed as normal. The other two are more special.’

She pointed at the first set of fourteen tiles she’d made. ‘This is a Chiitoitsu. Seven pairs, as opposed to four sets of three and a pair. Any seven unique pairs, though naturally you can’t have called anything.’

She then pointed to the other one. ‘This one’s a Kokushi musou – thirteen orphans. Though they’re not really orphans. The compulsory tiles are one of each terminal tile, and one of each honour tile. The remaining one makes a pair with any of the other tiles in your hand. This one’s one pair and twelve standalone tiles.’

Kyou remembered that one. The one Hisa had pulled in the first game he’d seen her play to drag his score back up to something respectable.


	6. Yaku List

She mixed the tiles again. ‘Those were the exceptions to having to win with four threes and a pair,’ she reiterated. ‘Now, exceptions the other way. If your hand lacks yaku, you can’t win even with four threes and a pair.’

                ‘Yaku…’ Kyou said thoughtfully. ‘Yuuki mentioned that. That’s a complete hand, right? But then how’s that different to four sets and a pair?’

Hisa sighed. ‘Sounds to me like she skipped that part entirely. A yaku is a requirement to tsumo or ron with a complete hand. They’re not the same thing.’

                ‘Then a yaku is…’

Hisa arranged the tiles again. ‘There are two types of yaku: those by situation and those by tile arrangements. You get a yaku if your hand is concealed – which you lose if you call anything, including kans. That’s worth one han. You also get one han if you declare riichi. Once in riichi – You should know this. Nodoka and Yuuki were using it enough.’

                ‘Riichi,’ Kyou repeated dutifully. ‘You can only declare it if your hand is concealed and in tenpai. And you do it by discarding your tile sideways and placing a riichi stick – so that’s 1000 points on the table. Then if you win, you get a bonus. On the other hand, if someone else wins, they get to keep the wager. And once you’ve declared riichi, you must discard all your draws if they don’t put you in tsumo. You can still win on a ron, but you can’t call anything else.’

                ‘Not quite true,’ Hisa hummed. ‘I’ll give that answer a B. You can still call a kan. Of course, if the draw from the dead wall doesn’t give you a tsumo, you discard that draw.’

                ‘Kans break so many rules.’ Kyou shook his head. ‘And knowing all this today isn’t the same as putting it into practice – or even remembering it tomorrow.’

                ‘True.’ Hisa grinned. ‘I should make you write them all out, too. If you’re serious about this, of course.’

She blinked when Kyou dug out a notebook and made to do exactly that. And she blinked some more as she saw the page already half filled with notes from the last few days. _He really is determined._ ‘I’ll just make us some tea…’

She came back with the tea and some cookies and nodded in appreciation at Kyou’s scribbled notes. His handwriting might require some squinting, but the notes were pretty thorough. ‘So, the yaku,’ she continued, handing one cup over and keeping the other for herself. ‘There’s a couple more that relate to riichi. Ippatsu is when someone declares riichi, and then gets their winning tile by their next draw. Then there’s double riichi, when is a riichi declared on the first turn with all other riichi rules applying. That’s it from the riichi side of things.’

She let Kyou finished scribbling that down and his biscuit before continuing. ‘There’s a kan special called rinshal kaihou. That’s when someone declares a kan – closed or open – and then wins on a tsumo by the tile drawn from the dead wall. They can have declared riichi before that, but it’s not a prerequisite. Then there’s Haitei Raoyue which is calling tsumo with the last tile that can be legally drawn – not counting the dead wall. And Houtei Raoyui which is the same, but with the last discard instead. Finally, for the situational yaku, there’s chakan where someone makes a pon, then a late kan on another draw – and someone else calls ron on the tile completing the kan. Then there’s a special one called nagashi mangan that only applies in a draw where the player’s only discarded terminals and honours.’

                ‘Couldn’t they have made a Kokushi musou with those?’ Kyou asked. ‘I mean, that’s a lot of discards to get to a draw.’

                ‘Foresight,’ said Hisa, amused. ‘A Kokushi musou hand is pretty inflexible when building it from scratch, you know. Can you reasonably expect to get all terminals and honour draws? Unless you’ve got some freaky power that’ll make it happen.’

                ‘There are people like that?’

                ‘There sure are.’ She grinned. ‘I did it. But there are also ways of countering even the fiercest of demons, if you’re gutsy enough.’

                ‘Well.’ Kyou stared at his notes. ‘I am going to drown in mahjong rules – but I think I’m pretty gutsy.’

                ‘Good.’ Hisa drained her cup. ‘I expect a win tomorrow. Put at least some of this into practice. Otherwise you’ll be our errand boy for the rest of the term.’

Kyou winced. The school council had a habit of running their errand boys (or girls) ragged. And for the rest of the term…

                ‘Well,’ said Hisa, grinning at the look on his face. ‘You’ll just have to win a hand tomorrow, won’t you? It’s been over a week after all.’

                ‘You’re a slave driver,’ Kyou muttered. ‘You and Yuki both.’

                ‘We’ll finish the rest of the yaku if you win.’


	7. Online Game

Kyou wondered if the president was serious about turning him into an errand boy, but supposed it didn’t matter in the end. He needed a little push he wasn’t getting from just playing mah-jong – at least in this early stage. And Yuuki’s homework was far too straightforward, even if he’d only had one afternoon of it.

Which meant online mahjong. That’d be easier because the computer told him when he could call or declare riichi and calculated the scores… But he couldn’t seem to win a hand there, either. He could watch replays too, though. That helped. Showed him he was better off having tried for a slightly different hand once he saw what draws were in the future.

Like he could work that out on the fly, though!

Maybe that was what the president meant about some people having supernatural powers like that. Then again, Nodoka-san said it was all about logic and probability. He wondered if he’d display a supernatural power when playing. That’d be pretty cool.

He wondered if Miyangana Teru had a special power. That would explain a few things.

He wondered if Saki knew.

But he wanted to keep his involvement in mahjong a secret, at least for now.

So he played against the computer. That was tricky, at first, because clicking on tiles was pretty different to playing a table. But he got the hang of it quickly enough. Maybe because he still didn’t have the hang of playing at the table.

The reason didn’t matter, anyway. The practice did.

An arrow pointed at the opponent’s 1-pin. ‘Chi.’

A few rounds later, another appeared with the 8-sou. ‘Pon.’

And another few rounds later, a blinking indicator saying “ron” with the left player’s 5-man. ‘Ron.’ _Finally._ Except an error message popped up on the screen. ‘No yaku.’

_Crap…_

He checked his tiles. He had a sequence of 1-pin, 2-pin and 3-pin. Then the three 8-sou. Then three 6-sou, a pair of white dragons and a sequence of 3-man and 4-man, with a wait on a 2 or 5-man. He had an open hand, so all the closed hand yakus were out. He had a 1-pin and two white dragons so it wasn’t a hand with no honours or terminals. And evidentially he didn’t have a yaku no-one had mentioned.

There should be a list, he thought, on the internet somewhere. He typed it into the search engine. “Yaku list.”

Okay, so he didn’t have all one suit and honours, or a triplet of dragons or seat or round winds, either. He did have two dragons though so if someone discarded the third or he drew it, he could draw that. But that meant he had to break up his triplet, or give up on the wait.

Giving up on the wait seemed easier.

Unfortunately, the left player called a ron with the 3-man discard.

_And I would have won if I’d had a yaku…_

Next time, he made sure not to call until he had a triplet of ton tiles. But he didn’t get to call anything else all game. _Maybe I shouldn’t have called that time…_

He looked over his discards. _…wait. I forgot to make a pair._ He’d been trying to complete sequences and let potential pairs slip away.

He let his head thump down on the keyboard. _So many rules…_

Then he lifted his head up. He’d get them all, eventually. _One more time for tonight._

He managed to win a 300/500 hand with it, and his parents wondered what in the world had him celebrating so loudly.


	8. Trash Hand

He waved the proof in front of the president’s face on Monday. ‘I won!’ he crowed.

                ‘A trash hand.’ Hisa sounded amused. ‘Though you did win. Congratulations. How many times did it take?’

                ‘I lost count,’ Kyou admitted, deflating slightly. Truthfully, with the amount of games he’d played, one win was probably not worth much. Especially such a low scoring hand. But it was his first hand. That afforded a little more excitement than normal, he thought. ‘Why is it called a trash hand? There are lower scoring hands.’

                ‘A 300/500 hand is 1100 points in total,’ Hisa laughed. ‘Ignoring any riichi bets you sweep up as well, obviously. The only way to score less than that is winning by ron on the same hand, which will give you 1000 points. Of course, winnign with the same hand on the dealer turn will give you 500 all by tsumo, or 15000 by ron.’

                ‘Winning on your dealer turn gives you more points per same hand?’ Kyou asked. He hadn’t noticed that… but he didn’t know how to count points, either.

                ‘There’s a table.’ Hisa pointed at the chart next to their game records. ‘Seasoned mahjong players memorise the salient points and can work out what sort of hands they can get out of their startup, and what sort of hands their opponents are getting from their discards. It’s important stuff, both for not playing into your opponent’s hands and helping them along a little.’

                ‘Helping them?’ Kyou repeated. ‘Why would you want to help them win?’

                ‘Well…’ She smiled. ‘Let’s put it this way. The person across from you is going to get a yakuman in two turns. You’re nowhere near tenpai, but the person to your left is in tenpai with a cheap hand on a tile you may be holding in your hand. Would you withhold that and let the person across from you win with a yakuman, or would you sacrifice 1000 points to the player on your left to stop yourself from losing 8000 points? Or 16,000, if you or the player across from you is the dealer.’

                ‘1000 points, obviously,’ Kyou said, before processing that. ‘Oh, that’s what you mean. It’s not just about winning every hand you can.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Why does this game get more complicated every day I spend playing it?’

                ‘You signed up for this,’ Hisa reminded. ‘But you’re not doing badly, you know. You’re still here after a week. That’s the most important game.’

                ‘I’ve won one game out of _hundreds_ ,’ Kyou complained.

                ‘True.’ Hisa’s smile was surprisingly gentle. ‘Most people would have given up after the first ten. But you kept going and you won.’

                ‘I… have my reasons.’ But Hisa was right. He had trudged on, and he knew a lot more about mah-jong than he had last week. And he had a win under his belt as well. Once he’d won once, he could continue to win. And he could get the hang of scoring and aim for bigger playoffs too. And sink into his own pattern of play. And maybe he’d discover some cool power while he was at it. ‘Hey, kaichou?’

                ‘Hmm?’ Hisa asked.

                ‘Is getting plus/minus zero in mah-jong one of those supernatural powers you were talking about?’

Well, he was going to let it slip eventually.

                ‘Plus/minus zero?’ she repeated, sounding mystified. ‘That’s… If there’s really a person like that…’ She shook her head. ‘Getting plus/minus zero is far harder than simply winning at a table. I doubt that, even if I was playing against myself, I could get one of the four hands to do that consistently. So yeah, I’d say that is an amazing ability. Why? Do you know someone?’

He nodded. ‘They… well, they’ve stopped playing though. And – ‘ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t make an effort to understand then, and now it’s too late.’

                ‘Hmm…’ Hisa looked like she wanted to ask more, but she didn’t. ‘She must be special.’

He shrugged again. ‘Nah, she’s the runt of her family.’

                ‘Suga-kun!’ Then she started laughing. ‘You’ve got a bit to learn about girls before you go on your first date.’ At his expression, she added: ‘Unless you’ve flopped your first one already?’

                ‘No!’ he exclaimed, before checking his volume. Not that it really mattered, considering the building was otherwise empty. ‘How’d we even get onto the subject of dates?!’


	9. East Streak

Yuuki, Mako and Nodoka trickled in soon after Hisa left to prepare the tea, and the four of them began a game. Yuuki sat at the East corner. She hadn’t been allowed last week. ‘Today I’m going to show you my east streak,’ she grinned.

Mako sighed. ‘Oh boy. Yuuki’s a terror in the East seat.’

                ‘Only because you believe she is,’ Nodoka said calmly. ‘Putting her on a pedestal makes you more likely to play into her hand.’

Mako rolled her eyes playfully. ‘Honestly, I wonder what it’ll take for you to see a demon in mahjong.’

                ‘There’s no such thing as a demon in mah-jong. Just players well versed in the games and others who are temporarily favoured by luck.’

                ‘And ones who lady luck seems to hate, for whatever reason?’ Mako asked, before addressing Kyou. ‘I mean, even a beginner can win a hand or two on a complete fluke, but you haven’t won a single one.’

                ‘I did win one,’ Kyou corrected proudly, waving his sheet.

Yuuki snatched it out of his hands and hummed… Before gaping at the hand itself. ‘You won with a trash hand when you could have gotten a mangan? What were you thinking?’

                ‘Mangan?’ Kyou parroted.

                ‘And you’re not exactly one to comment,’ Mako said, amused. ‘You can’t count scores that great yourself.’

                ‘I can count hand scores,’ Yuki pouted, ‘and besides, even if you can’t, it’s still pretty obvious what sort of hands are more expensive than others.’

                ‘How so?’ Kyou asked. ‘I mean, aside from yakuman…’

                ‘Yakuman are the best of the best.’ Yuuki bit into her taco. ‘But put simply, a hand scores higher when it has more fu and more yaku and dora. There are no such things as 20 fu 1 han and 25 fu 1 han, so a 30 fu 1 han is the cheapest hand you can get, which is 1000 on ron or 300/500 on tsumo.’

                ‘So the hand I won with was a 30 fu 1 han one, then. And the han was the yaku from the triplet of white dragon tiles?’

                ‘Yep. Then you automatically get 20 fu for a winning hand, plus 4 fu for your triplet of dragon tiles. Waits get fu as well, but you had a two sided wait so that gets 0 fu. So in total that’s 24 fu, rounded up to 30.’

                ‘I don’t get it.’ Kyou’s brow furrowed as he tried to puzzle it out. ‘If 24 rounds up to 30, then how do you get 25 fu?’

                ‘Oh, that’s chinitsu,’ Yuuki grinned. ‘Seven pairs have a base value of 25 fu, plus any additional bonuses in there. That’s a special case. And they’re a standalone yaku. Otherwise everything gets rounded up to the next ten. Then there are other exceptions: mangan, haneman, baiman, sanbaiman, and yakuman. The base scores for them are different. And that’s the order of worth as well. Yakumans are the most expensive hands and the hardest to get, but it’s pretty easy to get a mangan or even a haneman. More practical too, otherwise you’ll need pretty long renchans to get a decent score, while a single hit from a higher scoring hand will set you back to nothing.’

                ‘Or you can get a dealer streak like Yuuki here and try to run someone out,’ Mako grinned. ‘Usually Nodoka or Hisa will stop her.’

                ‘What do you do then?’ Kyou asked.

Mako grinned. ‘I let them war it out and swoop in when they lag. And that’s extra effective on Yuuki because she slows down after the East round.’

                ‘I’m a genius,’ Yuuki said airily. ‘I can’t keep up my energy.’

But when they started playing, Kyou seriously doubted that, because Yuuki had knocked him out by the fourth bonus round, and no-one but Yuuki managed to score a hand at all.

With no renchans, that would have been equivalent to the first south round.


	10. Just One Win

Nodoka scowled at Kyou’s discards. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

Yuuki came around the table too. ‘What were you doing?’ she exclaimed. ‘Why did you discard the south winds when you had a pair of them? Even if it’s not your seat wind, you could’ve gotten a triplet – and you did, two turns later.’ She sighed. ‘And here: discarding your 1-pin for the 4-pin. Chantra is a yaku too and – here, see? You had two 9-mans and set of the 7, 8 and 9-sou. And why did you discard the 1-man?’

                ‘Because I didn’t have anything to match it up with?’ Kyou blinked. ‘And wouldn’t Someya-san be holding onto the south winds?’

                ‘Nodoka discarded a south wind,’ Mako pointed out. ‘That left only one so I’d have given up on it at some point. And as for the 1-man not fitting anywhere…’ She pointed at his discard point. ‘You discarded a 3-man two turns later.’

                ‘How am I supposed to see the future?’ Kyou exclaimed.

                ‘It’s instinct,’ Yuuki said, then repeated it again. ‘ _In_ stinct.’ Then she hummed again. ‘You know, you’re awfully good at playing into other’s hands. Maybe you should try not discarding the tiles you want to.’

                ‘Huh?’ said Kyou. That sounded completely nonsensical.’

                ‘It’s like this. Consider the tile you want to discard the most, then make it useful and discard something else.’ And with that pearl of wisdom departed, Yuuki skipped back to her seat. ‘Okay, let’s play again.’

                ‘Don’t listen to my instincts,’ Kyou mumbled to himself. ‘Well, it couldn’t hurt.’

And it didn’t. It was Mako that dealt into Yuuki’s hand this time. And they all crowded around his hand. Yuuki grinned at that. ‘See, if you’d won with that hand, you could’ve gotten a mangan.’

                ‘Win how?’ asked Kyou, who’d been trying to save the tiles that he wanted to discard and wound up with what looked, to him at least, like a completely nonsensical hand.

                ‘Well, you have two dora and two green dragon tiles,’ Mako explained. ‘So if you’d gotten the third green dragon, that’d be your yakuhai, for a minimum of three han. You’ve got doubles of the 1-man and 8-man, so you needed another one of either of those to make a triplet. And you’ve got a set ready to go and another that needs a 7-pin.’

                ‘Oh.’ Kyou stared at his hand. ‘So I was only three tiles away from tenpai, huh.’ Then he looked at his discards. There weren’t that many. Yuuki played a fast hand. ‘So I could have completed this hand before the end if Yuuki hadn’t been so fast?’

                ‘More like if I hadn’t played into her hand,’ Mako sighed, ‘or if Yuki hadn’t called a pon of the 4-sou. Then you’d have gotten the 1-man and you could have used it up, unlike me who’d declared riichi and had to discard it.’

                ‘You should know better than to declare riichi against me in the East round,’ Yuuki grinned.

Mako shrugged. ‘You’re not immune to speed,’ she pointed out. ‘I may not get you as many times as Nodoka, but I can still catch you with a riichi.’

                ‘Hmm…’ Kyou stared back at his discards. ‘This hand’s pretty different to what I started out with.’

The first south round, in comparison, had his entire hand replaced but he was able to call a riichi just over half-way through. And that was after dealing into Nodoka’s hand, and then Yuki’s hand, then getting nailed with Mako’s haneman tsumo during his dealership.

Unfortunately, when they reached the end of the first south round and revealed their hands, Nodoka revealed that she’d been holding onto his winning tiles.

At least she was no-ten. That was some consolidation.

Yuuki, on the other hand, was amused. ‘That’s Nodoka bailing cleanly, for you. She hardly ever plays into someone’s hand like that, you know.’

The one time someone could have played into his hand, too. Kyou pouted.

Yuuki pat him on the back. ‘Cheer up,’ she laughed. ‘At least you didn’t deal into someone’s hand, even after declaring the riichi.’ Then she stole a peak at his hand. ‘Not bad. A 40 fu 3 han would’ve been 1300/2600 on tsumo, or 3200 on a ron.’

                ‘It doesn’t matter if I can’t win with it.’ And Kyou hung his head.


	11. Pressing the Accelerator

                ‘Your hands need to speed up,’ Yuuki decided, after they’d ended the third south round and Kyou still hadn’t made it further than that one tenpai. ‘Why aren’t you calling?’

                ‘Too busy trying to replace my hand?’ Kyou suggested, though she had a point. Calling also meant he’d take two tiles already in his hand on the board so he wouldn’t have to replace them. But also… ‘I keep on winding up without any yaku if I call the first opportunity I get.’

                ‘Well, it is a skill knowing when to call and when not to,’ Mako agreed. ‘But since we’re experimenting here, it wouldn’t hurt.’

Especially since keeping tiles he felt like he wanted to discard seemed to be equating to keep new tiles and discard old ones, especially at the beginning. Hisa had teasingly called it his “cursed starting hand”, too. Though they’d have to pour over his records over the past week (and the online ones from the weekend) to see if the tiles which he played into others hands with were part of his original starting hands.

                ‘Okay, I’ll give it a try.’ And hopefully not lose everything else, like he had a habit of doing when trying something new.

The last south round began, with him as dealer. The dora was a green dragon, and he had two white dragons in his hand. Which meant he didn’t particularly want to discard them, but better would be a red dragons as the dora. Aside from that, he had a ton, a xia, a pei, a green dragon, a 9-pin, 9-man and 9-sou, two 5-sous, a 2-sou, 3-sou, and a 1-pin.

South wind and he was east, so the xia and pei were the first to go. Nodoka discarded a 2-pin and he called a chi on it. _Okay, now I really need that white dragon._

He drew another 5-sou, then Yuuki discarded one. He called an open kan on that and got a 4-man. Two turns later, he drew a second 4-man, and in between the 4-sou that completed his concealed sequence. Now all he needed was the white dragon.

But this was also where he’d deal into someone’s hand, waiting for it. He drew a 6-sou and discarded the 2-sou. Then drew a 5-sou and sighed in relief. He had his concealed sequence back, and it didn’t use a single tile from his original hand. All that was left was to find another white dragon and he would win this hand. The two white dragons from his original starting hand, waiting impatiently.

If no-one discarded it soon, he was going to wind up dealing into someone’s hand again, wasn’t he? Especially with the way Yuuki and Mako were eyeing the two tiles in his hand that hadn’t moved since the beginning of the round. But only one red dragon had been discarded yet. Was someone’s hand concealing the other three?

Then he drew a red dragon, and discarded one of the white. Yuuki called a pon on them, and he sighed in relief. Pon, not ron.

He discarded the other white dragon and waited three turns before he got the second red.

He was in tenpai again, awaiting the final red dragon on a 4 han hand. Was that a mangan? Yuuki hadn’t really explained that properly and he couldn’t remember the table off the top of his head yet.

Then Yuuki discarded a red dragon. ‘Ron!’

Her jaw dropped open. So did Mako’s. Nodoka simply scanned his revealed hand. ’Yakuhai with three dora, so 40 fu 4 han,’ she said. ‘That’s a mangan, and since you’re the dealer, it’s 12000 points.’

                ‘Wow, keep it down,’ Hisa laughed, when Kyou cheered. ‘Looks like Yuuki was on to something after all.’

                ‘It’s not fair you nailed me with that, though,’ Yuuki pouted.

                ‘I’m sorry,’ Kyou apologised, ‘but you had the only red dragon left.’

                ‘I had to discard that to get into tenpai!’

                ‘That’s a catch-22 that almost always pops up end-game,’ Hisa grinned. ‘Do you attack or defend? Nodoka always defends. Yuuki always attacks. I tend to defend as well. There are strengths and weaknesses to both strategies. In any case, do you want to try your luck with a renchan?’

                ‘Oh yeah, I get a bonus hand, don’t I?’

Nodoka wound up winning that hand before he could get his own together. But he wasn’t last for once. Amazingly.


End file.
